At the time, Crystal may have been right, as she beat Proskauer in a WIPO dispute for proskauerlawfirm.com. However, today the WIPO found that “Basically, for a price, [Crystal Cox] would undo the injury to the Complainant for which she was responsible for having created in the first place.” Accordingly, Crystal Cox’s “egregious conduct clearly constitutes bad faith under the Policy.”

Naturally, I would find the opinion to be a good one, as the Panel found in my favor. However, the Panelist seems to have really gotten the whole point of Crystal Cox’s extortion scheme — something that prior panels dealing with her failed to do. See Joseph Leccese v. Crystal Cox, WIPO Case No. D2011-0679 and Allen Fagin v. Crystal Cox, WIPO Case No. D2011-0678. In those cases, either the Complainant didn’t communicate the facts adequately to the Panels, or the Panels were just lazy in their analysis.

In this case, the Panelist got right to the heart of the matter.

Highlights from the opinion:

In this passage, the Panel lays out in pretty clean terms, Cox’s extortion scam.

Chickity China the Chinese chicken, you have a drumstick and your brain stops tickin', watchin' X-Files with no lights on, we're dans la maison, I hope the Smoking Man's in this one.

Growing up, my favorite show was the X-Files. You could never tell if Fox Mulder was off his rocker, or whether the whole thing was part of a big alien conspiracy. And the Smoking Man was pretty cool.

I still like shows on the History Channel about Nostradamus, the Mayan Calendar, and the Illuminati and that sort of thing. Hell, I’ve even read the DaVinci Code. The conspiracy theory stuff is always fun and interesting.

Today, as an unabashed Nickelback fan, I’m hoping to become part of the vast conspiracy.

Now, I know you’re saying “There’s no such thing as a Nickelback fan!”

But shouldn’t the question be asked?

Are Nickelback fans trying to silence Crystal Cox on behalf of big media?

"Does anyone out there want me to write defamatory stuff about them and then buy my reputation management services to remove it? YOU CAN PAY ME IN STRAIGHT CASH HOMIE!"

Today I’m here to shine a little sunlight and tell you the entire story of Obsidian v. Cox, the matter touted as “bloggers aren’t journalists.”

Often, the truth is much stranger, and sicker, than fiction…

This is how Crystal Cox’s scam works generally: Cox calls herself an investigative blogger / journalist. She posts a bunch of negative stuff about you on the internet. Then she buys a bunch of domain names about you, your family, and your business to make sure all her posts are at the top of a Google search. But lucky for you, Cox also happens to be a “reputation management specialist.” Cox then offers to sell you “reputation management services” to clean it all up to the tune of $2500 a month.

Crystal Cox: “Pay me $2,500 a month and I won’t write false crap about you, call your wife a slut, and go after your 3 year old daughter on the internet! STRAIGHT CASH HOMIE!”

Imagine this…. you Google yourself. To your surprise, a whole bunch of stuff that is blatantly untrue comes up. Being an adult, you call the person who wrote it. This is how the conversation goes down:

“Did you write all that stuff on a website about me?”
“Yup. I’m an investigative blogger journalist!”
“Um, a bunch of the stuff you wrote about me is untrue. Actually all of it is.”
“Oh sure, I know. But I’m a journalist blogger so I can say whatever I want. First Amendment, bitch! But tell you what – I’m also reputation manager. If you pay me $2,500 a month, I’m sure a lot of that untrue stuff would go away.”
“Uhhhhhh… wait a second. You wrote a bunch of stuff that’s untrue about me. And now you’ll only take it down if I pay you?”
“Yup! And if you DON’T pay me it’s going to get worse! I’m going to buy a bunch of domain names that involve you and your family. Not only will I smear your reputation, but I’ll smear theirs, too! I’ll write all kinds of stuff, like call your wife a slut! I’ll even go after your four year old child!”
“That’s extortion!”
“No silly, it’s not extortion! It’s journalism! Investigative journalism!”

You’re probably saying to yourself “nah, that couldn’t happen. That’s illegal. A person could get in a lot of trouble for doing something so irresponsible and probably illegal.”

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